QUEER PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



59i 



he can be relied upon to commit all the havoc a creature of his strength 

 could possibly execute in five times sixty seconds ; an instinct border- 

 ing on inspiration seems to tell him at the first glance where and how 

 to perpetrate the greatest amount of actual damage in the shortest pos- 

 sible time. In a harbor-hotel of Cartagena I saw a mono whose terpsi- 

 chorean talents had made him a more than local celebrity. He could 

 dance the Moorish zameca, besides the bolero and fandango, and was 

 sometimes released at the request of his admirers, who pitied his con- 

 stant collisions with the lock of his drag-chain ; but on such occasions 

 the landlady used to charge a real extra, for even her presence did not 

 prevent the mono from indulging his ruling passion. Under pretext 

 of returning the caresses of his visitors, he managed to abstract their 

 buttons, upset a flower-pot or two, or interrupted his performances to 

 make a grab at a litter of poodle puppies on the veranda. His scar- 

 covered skull proved that the lot of the transgressor is hard ; but the 



1 M ( 

 I M 



Fig. 1. Total Depravity. 



depilated condition of his neck was owing to a peculiar trick of his, 

 as the posadera explained it. He would hug a post near his couch 

 under the veranda, and, stretching his head back and his tongue out, 

 would twist his neck to and fro, as if in the agonies of strangulation. 



